A modeling approach for locating logistics platforms for fast parcels delivery in urban areas

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1 A modeling approach for locating logistics platforms for fast parcels delivery in urban areas Olivier Guyon, Nabil Absi, Dominique Feillet, Thierry Garaix To cite this version: Olivier Guyon, Nabil Absi, Dominique Feillet, Thierry Garaix. A modeling approach for locating logistics platforms for fast parcels delivery in urban areas. Eiichi Taniguchi; Russell G. Thompson. Seventh International Conference on City Logistics, Jun 2011, Mallorca, Spain. Elsevier, 39, pp , 2012, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. <emse > HAL Id: emse Submitted on 24 Jun 2011 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

2 29 A MODELING APPROACH FOR LOCATING LOGISTICS PLATFORMS FOR FAST PARCEL DELIVERY IN URBAN AREAS Olivier Guyon, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne CMP, France Nabil Absi, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne - CMP, France Dominique Feillet, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne - CMP, France Thierry Garaix, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne - CMP, France ABSTRACT This study aims at defining a framework for optimizing, in a sustainable way (i.e. economical, eco-friendly and societal), the location of logistics platforms in urban areas. A first case study for our work is the city of Marseilles (France) which already has a logistics platform right in its centre (ARENC: m 2 of warehouses and offices). In this abstract, we first provide a precise description of the problem we intend to solve. We then propose a mathematical model for representing it. Preliminary experimentations, based on the city of Marseilles, are then described; figures and preliminary results which are proposed for this first case study are obtained thanks to a decision-making software we have implemented. Conclusions and future works are finally drawn. INTRODUCTION City logistics has raised the interest of many researchers from different communities and countries in the last decade (Taniguchi and Thompson, 2002; Boudouin, 2006; Crainic, 2008; Guyon et al., 2010). The subject of this paper is the location of logistics platforms in the context of fast parcel delivery in urban areas. 1

3 Regarding the last miles, fast parcel deliveries is generally managed as follows by carriers. Parcels are supplied to platforms early in the morning (late in the night) and sorted according to their final destination. Trucks are then loaded and drivers start deliveries. Once finished, collection of parcels are started and distributed to platforms in the mid afternoon, so that parcels can be sorted and dispatched in the evening. An important matter is that a single route is scheduled for delivery, followed by a single route dedicated to collection. A strong tendency that could be observed in most urban areas during last decades was to limit the presence of the logistics platforms in urban areas. Several simple reasons can explain this phenomenon. Inhabitants do not appreciate living around these platforms that might cause increases of traffic (and specially traffic of large vehicles), generate noise and pollution, or have some unpleasant visual impact. Also, available surfaces in cities are rare and expensive. From a pure economical point of view, carriers used to prefer less expensive locations, at some distance of the city, though the inconveniences of being distant from final customers. Also, local authorities gave priority to more noble activities for these available surfaces: commercial centers, apartments, public services as libraries or concert halls... Due to many recent factors, the benefits of this policy, both for local authorities and carriers (and eventually inhabitants), can be questioned. Environmental issues become more and more important. New purchase channels as e-business modify profiles of carrier customers and imply different organizations and services. Disposing of urban platforms can then offer several possibilities as using electric vehicles (whose limited autonomy prevents from travelling long distances) or scheduling several successive deliveries or collection routes (which is not tractable with distant platforms). Though some urban platforms exist and their performance on different criteria can be analyzed, no model seems to allow quantifying a priori the effect of locating a platform at a given position. In this study, we propose an original model that aims at answering to the following problems: given a set of available surfaces in and outside of the city, given an average distribution activity of the city, o how many logistics platforms have to be built? where should they be located? and how should they be sized? o how should be the vehicle fleet of each logistics platform composed of? o what should be the (approximate) daily route of each vehicle? so that the distribution is performed at optimal performance regarding a set of criteria including economic, environmental and social impacts. given a set of available surfaces in and outside of the city, Operations research literature is rich of works devoted to location of logistics platforms or design of distribution networks. Some important references are (Crainic, 2000; Daskin, 1995; Klose and Drexl, 2005; Melo et al., 2009; Revelle et al., 2008). While some of them concern city logistics (Crainic, 2008; Taniguchi et al., 1999), none of these works address the issues investigated here. 2

4 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION AND MODELING APPROACH Problem description The model we propose involves a set of spatially distributed zones of demand, a set of available surfaces for logistics platforms and a set of vehicles to transport goods (i) from the logistics platforms to the zones of demand, (ii) within the zones of demand through routes. Each zone has a demand of positions (a position being defined as a stop of a vehicle for serving a customer). All positions are distributed within through a single route of kilometres. A set Δ of compatible zones is assigned to ; the compatibility of zones is used to define routes of vehicles. Indeed, routes of different zones can be merged if and only if the concerned zones are compatible. A congestion cost (taking values in {A, B, C, D, E}) is assigned to in order to represent the difficulty of driving within ; can depend on the population density of, its topology, the width of its streets... Each available surface for logistics platforms has a size defined as a maximal number of doors which can be built on. Each door of can ensure the distribution of positions. The distance between an available surface and a zone of demand is denoted. The total cost of selecting is divided into four costs: (i) an economic fixed cost for the construction or the maintenance of (euro), (ii) an economic cost for building a door on (euro), (iii) a cost of the inhabitants acceptability ({A, B, C, D, E}) and (iv) a cost for the pollution created by a door built on ({A, B, C, D, E}). Each vehicle has a capacity (number of positions) and a distance-autonomy (Kms). The driving time per day of is limited by two parameters: (i) (minutes) which depends on the specific technical characteristics of, and (ii) (minutes) which is a workload limit. is furthermore limited to travel on a subset J of zones of demand (because of the legislation, the width of the streets...). Travel times in our model depend on the type of vehicles. We thus use, for each vehicle, the notations and that respectively define the travel time for serving the zone of demand, and the travel time between and an available surface for logistics platforms. The total cost of using is divided into five costs: (i) an economic fixed cost for the purchase of (euros), (ii) a driving cost (euros/km), (iii) a cost for gas emissions of (euros/km), (iv) a cost of the inhabitants acceptability ({A, B, C, D, E}) and (v) a congestion cost ({A, B, C, D, E}). Hypotheses of our model and justifications One carrier. This paper addresses solutions for locating public logistics platforms where goods are consolidated in order to be delivered in the cities by one single carrier (public or private). One route per vehicle. To cope with the current organization of the carriers (because of constraints on drivers, on incompressible processing times for sorting and consolidating goods 3

5 in distribution centres), we assume that each vehicle cannot be assigned to more than one route per day. One vehicle per zone of demand. To cope also with the current organization of carriers, we assume that each zone of demand is served by a single vehicle. It implies that, as in practice, the size of each zone of demand fits in at least one vehicle. Transportation costs are estimated. Exact transportation costs are complicated to handle. Two main approaches to estimate them can be found in the literature. Either transportation costs are roughly approximated as being simply dependent on the distance between the platform and the zone of delivery; such approach does not make sense in an urban context, with a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles. Or vehicle routes are explicitly constructed (in so-called Location-Routing Problems); we do not believe that going into such deep details is necessary here, as decisions are very strategic, concern a very dynamic context (urban areas, fast delivery) and are based on very approximated/aggregated data (demand, costs...). We rather evaluate transportation costs as follows: the transportation cost of a route depends on the first zone served (indicating the cost of entering the city from a distant platform) and the set of zones of delivery (indicating the distances traveled during the deliveries). Constraints are introduced, through the use of the compatibility between zones, to avoid including distant zones in a same delivery route. A logistic platform has a 10-year life cycle and works 300 days per year. MIP model In this section, we propose an Integer Linear Programming model associated with the problem at hand. For the sake of clarity, the presentation of this mathematical formulation is split into three parts: the decision variables, the constraints and the different optimization criteria of the model. Beforehand, we define two additional sets and we use in our model: stands for the set of zones of demand the vehicle can serve (it is allowed to serve the zones and its size fits their demand), and defines the set of vehicles which can be used to serve the zone of demand. Decision variables. The decision variables of our mathematical model are: 1 if a logistics platform is built on the available surface, 0 otherwise ; is the number of doors to be built on the logistics platform located on ; 1 if the vehicle is assigned to the logistics platform located on and serves the zone of demand, 0 otherwise ;,, 1 if the vehicle is based in the logistic platform located on and begins its daily route by serving the zone of demand, 0 otherwise ;,, 4

6 Constraints. Doors can only be built, up to the size of the site, on selected available surfaces for logistics platforms (1). The demand of each zone has to be fully fulfilled (2), i.e. a vehicle has to be assigned to each zone of demand. Constraints (3) and (4) are capacity constraints for, respectively, platforms and vehicles: we cannot assign too many positions (through the assignment of vehicles) to each platform (3) and the number of positions served by a vehicle is limited by its size (4). The daily use of each vehicle is limited by its distance autonomy (5) and its travel autonomy (6). Constraints (7) formalize constraints of compatibility between zones of demand: incompatible zones (typically zones that are distant one from each other) cannot be served in a single route. Constraints (8), (9) and (10) define the assignment of variables ; each first zone of a route has to be a served zone (8), each route cannot have more than one zone (9) and each route has to have a first zone (10). Constraints (11), (12), (13) and (14) define the variable domains. 5

7 Optimization criteria. As mentioned before, this paper addresses investigations about sustainable solutions for the location of logistics platforms in urban areas. The global objective function of our model is thus composed of different criteria around the three aspects of sustainability: economy (15), (16), (17), environment (18), (19), (20) and society (20), (21). Some of these objective functions manage qualitative costs ({A, B, C, D, E}). In our experiments, all these costs are converted into numerical values according to their category. For the economic purpose, our model addresses the fixed cost of building or maintaining logistics platforms (15), the fixed cost of purchasing vehicles (16) and the variable cost of using vehicles (17). The environmental cost function of our model is split into three parts: a variable pollution cost caused by travels of vehicles (18), a variable pollution cost caused by logistics platforms (19) and a variable congestion cost due to both vehicles and platforms. Our model also addresses fixed acceptability costs through two criteria: the acceptability by inhabitants near logistics platforms (21) and the acceptability by inhabitants impacted by vehicles movements (22). 6

8 In a first approach, we define the global objective function of our model as the sum of these 8 optimization criteria. Future works will investigate multi-objectives methods to deal with the diversity of these criteria. GENERIC OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE To experiment our model, we have developed a generic optimization tool able to create, compute and evaluate different scenarios in any urban area. In this software, users can split a geographical urban area into different zones of demand and describe for each zone: the demand, specific vehicle traffic rules, and other properties such as size and travel time... Different types of vehicle can also be created according to their own list of attributes (which corresponds to the elements of our mathematical model). Available surfaces for logistics platforms, and their properties, can also be created and edited in our tool. Figure 1 is a screenshot of the software used on a map of Marseilles (a French city), with the editing of three data tables: available surfaces for logistics platforms, zones of demand and vehicles on Figures 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Figure 1 Optimization tool map 7

9 Figure 2 Optimization tool platforms Figure 3 Optimization tool - zones of demand Figure 4 Optimization tool - vehicles Our software has an optimization module. This module consists in optimizing the mathematical model described in the previous section using the commercial software IBM ILOG CPLEX12.1. The solver we propose can be tuned by the user. As the screenshot of the Figure 5 shows, the user can select available surfaces for logistics platforms and vehicle types, and define different weights to three global objectives: economy, environment and society. 8

10 Figure 5 Optimization tool - solver A FIRST CASE STUDY BASED ON MARSEILLES (FRANCE) The study proposed in this paper is done in partnership with a French consultancy service specialized in transports economics (JONCTION) which has collected aggregate data about actual distribution systems in the second largest city of France: Marseilles (852,395 inhabitants in 2007). JONCTION indeed met thirteen companies that already operate in Marseilles and its surroundings. They thus have collected both figures and actual ways of working of these thirteen companies. The model presented above is based on the conclusions and exploits the data of this study for Marseilles. To experiment our model and the software we have developed, we created an instance based on real data for Marseilles. In this instance, Marseilles' urban area is split into 94 sectors requiring 2957 deliveries per day. Five categories of vehicles are considered: two electric and three gasoline ones. Their maximum carrying capacities vary from 3.5 to 15 tons. The set of available surfaces for logistics platforms is composed of 5 localizations; three inside the urban area, and two in its surroundings. Preliminary results for our case study consists in selecting three of the four platforms (the two ones that are inside the urban area, and one on its periphery), and using 94 vehicles. About 300 vehicles run currently each day in Marseilles for this service. Therefore, we can expect to divide by three the size of the fleet delivering Marseilles, by merging the activities of the thirteen companies. 9

11 CONCLUSION We have proposed a new mathematical model for a strategic problem of City Logistics: the location and sizing of logistics platforms. For a concrete use of this model by local authorities of large cities, we have implemented an optimization tool for both editing data, finding a feasible solution and visualizing it. Such a tool can thus be used in order to compare different scenarios (location of candidate logistics platforms, policy rules on eligible fleet of vehicles inside the city...) and then take a strategic decision on the location of logistics platforms. Future works will address the creation of an instance, still dedicated to Marseille, which will be based on exact data. Ad hoc solution methods will also be developed in order to find good feasible solutions in a reduced CPU time. For the moment, we use a commercial optimization software that meets difficulties for solving very large instances. In our presentation for the 7 th International Conference on City Logistics, we will present our model and precisely describe the data we use for our case study (Marseille). We will also present an ad hoc solution method and its associated concrete results. An application of the optimization software we have implemented will also be demonstrated. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was carried out in partnership with JONCTION (consultancy service specialized in transports economics), SOGARIS (specialist in logistics property for urban and inter modal purposes) and the CLUSTER PACA LOGISTIQUE (association which federates logistics activities in the french region Provence-Alpes-Côte d Azur). It is funded by the French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, subsidy 09 MT CV 39. REFERENCES Boudouin, D. (2006). Guide méthodologique: les Espaces Logistiques Urbains. La documentation française, Paris. Crainic, T. G. (2000). Service network design in freight transportation. European Journal of Operations Research, 122, Crainic, T. G. (2008). City Logistics, CIRRELT. Technical report CIRRELT Daskin, M. S. (1995). Network and Discrete Location: Models, Algorithms, and Applications. John Wiley and sons, New York. Guyon O., N. Absi, D. Boudouin and D. Feillet (2010). Planification stratégique pour la logistique urbaine verte. Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, Working paper EMSE CMP-SFL 2010/6. Klose, A. and A. Drexl (2005). Facility location models for distribution system design. European Journal of operational Research, 162(1), Melo, M. T., S. Nickel and F. Saldanha-Da-Gama (2009). Facility location and supply chain management a review. European Journal of Operational Research, 196(2),

12 Revelle, C. S., H. A. Eiselt and M.S. Daskin (2008). A bibliography for some fundamental problem categories in discrete location science. European Journal of Operational Research, 184(3), Taniguchi, E, M. Noritake, T. Yamada and T. Izumitani (1999). Optimal size and location planning of public logistics platforms, Transportation Research, 35(3), Taniguchi, E. and R. G. Thompson (2006). Recent Advances in City Logistics. Emerald Goup Publishing. 11